legacy

“The eldest of the girls, Frances, known as Fanny, was according to Peggy, “an incurable soprano.” She wore feather boas and a rose in her hair and was an excellent cook, but nevertheless was given to constantly wiping household surfaces with Lysol. The family story had it that after quarreling with her for thirty years, her husband tried to kill her and one of their sons with a golf club, failed, and threw himself in a reservoir with weights on his feet. Another aunt, Adelaide, was enormously fat and late in life deluded herself into thinking that she was having an adulterous affair with a druggist named Balch; though her family tried to convince her that Balch did not exist, she remained so guilty and remorseful that they eventually put her in a nursing home. A third daughter Florette, was Peggy’s mother.”